Dame Ninette de Valois | News | The Guardian Ballet Dame Ninette de Valois Irish-born dancer and choreographer who devoted her life to the creation of British national ballet in the 20th century Mary Clarke and James Monahan Thursday 8 March 2001 21.27 EST Share on Messenger Close On July 13 1996, just before the Royal Ballet School's annual matinée at Covent Garden was about to begin, applause suddenly erupted from one side of the auditorium. "It must be Madam," said those of us who could not see her, and everyone spontaneously rose to applaud the fragile, white-haired figure who had been wheeled to her place at the side of the stalls circle. Madam it was. Dame Ninette de Valois, who has died aged 102, had made it, as she had made it almost every year, to see the student dancers who would carry forward the work she had started so many years ago - the tiny enterprise that was to grow into the whole edifice of the Royal Ballet and its school.

Earlier that year, on February 20, she had made it to Covent Garden for the 50th anniversary of the reopening of the Royal Opera House in 1946 with her company's production of The Sleeping Beauty. And she had come on stage for a standing ovation, led by the Queen from the royal box. She was also at Sadler's Wells that year for the final gala there, before the demolition of the theatre where her company had started. Far from being sentimental or nostalgic, Dame Ninette, although she never ceased to recognise the vital part which that theatre, thanks to Lilian Baylis, had played in the foundation of British ballet, knew it was time for rebuilding and lent her blessing to the enterprise. She had also travelled on a special train, at the age of 92, to celebrate the relocation of the then Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet to Birmingham when it was time for that company to move on and become the Birmingham Royal Ballet of today. She took a great interest in the reopening of the Sadler's Wells Theatre in October 1998, and of the Royal Opera House in November 1999.

Characteristically, she spent her 100th birthday at White Lodge in Richmond Park, the junior school of the Royal Ballet, still mentally alert to all that was going on and applauding, as always, the young dancers of the future. For, as she once wrote, "The work has not been thought out just for the present but for those days, months and years that go to make up the future. In brief there has been planted for you a true heritage. It is your duty to protect this gift - and see that it lives and expands." The gift, of course, was the Royal Ballet. The Royal Ballet was Dame Ninette de Valois's ballet, the Royal Ballet School her school. So she regarded them; and no one disagreed. Without her the 20th-century history of ballet in these islands would have been entirely different. Dame Ninette made British ballet. She had lieutenants, of course, but the generalship was hers, and she alone, in the formative years, was irreplaceable.

Latterly she could not scrutinise, all the time, the working of both London and Birmingham companies and the school; but her occasional visitations, her questions and whiplash criticism never ceased to matter greatly. She always aroused awe in those, especially the women, who worked under her. To the last it was Madam's approval that blessed, and her disapproval that damned, a budding project. At any time in her long career, "indomitable" was one of the right adjectives for her, especially in the last decades of her life, when she refused to give in to the arthritis and other ailments that increasingly afflicted her. She was constantly in demand and was obdurately conscientious in meeting that demand. Hindsight may tell us now that in the 1920s Britain was, at last, due for its turn as a centre of ballet. The Diaghilev company, known in London since 1911, had made a particularly big impression here. So had Pavlova. British dancers - Sokolova, Markova, Dolin, De Valois herself - were beginning to be noticeable among Diaghilev's exalted Russians.

But this was also a time when the French title worn by Diaghilev's organisation, Les Ballets Russes, was a pertinent reminder that these exiled Russians had made their artistic home in France, where the tradition of ballet long outdated even the Russian one. It would have been a rare prophet who, at that time, could tell that an enduring consequence of this gorgeous Franco-Russian marriage would be the determination of a young, rather solitary Irish dancer that such delights should be made possible in Britain too. De Valois was born Edris Stannus at Baltiboys, a country house some two miles from the village of Blessington in County Wicklow, and always insisted, like WB Yeats, with whom she worked, "I am of Ireland." Irish she was, by birth and temperament, but it was to England - like the Polish Marie Rambert - that she gave her life. Her first dance was an authentic Irish jig, taught to her by the family cook, Kate, to perform on the stone floor of the kitchen at Baltiboys.

Did that jig, which she "adored", instil in her the passionate understanding of native dances of the British Isles that she was, much later, to introduce with such sensible determination to the curriculum of the Royal Ballet School? By the age of 11, the family had moved to London and she learned "fancy dancing" from the fashionable Mrs Wordsworth, and then more professional exercises at the Lila Field Academy. Halfway through her 14th year she was on tour with the "Wonder Children" from that academy, had learned the Dying Swan from having seen Pavlova, and claimed to have danced it - sometimes with encore - "on the end of every pier in England". But she realised that more serious training in classical ballet was necessary and went to Edouard Espinosa for classes. She became principal dancer in pantomimes at the Lyceum and in opera ballets at Covent Garden; took classes alongside Diaghilev's dancers in London with Maestro Cecchetti; and became friends with Lydia Lopokova and Léonide Massine, with whose small company, in 1921, she had her first taste of working with Russians.

Already moves were afoot to establish a British national ballet and De Valois, with her usual good sense and foresight, realised that the only way to learn how to run a ballet repertory company was to join one. She went straight for the best and joined, unconditionally as a member of the corps de ballet, Diaghilev's company. She was there from 1923 to 1925, and returned briefly in 1926. She danced and created solo roles in ballets by Massine and Nijinska; she learned about company procedure, choreography and, from her studies with Cecchetti and Nicholas Legat, the classic, academic dance. In 1926 she opened her own school, grandly called the Academy of Choreographic Art, and that same year had her now celebrated interview with Lilian Baylis of the Old Vic. Baylis "liked her face", liked her long-term plans for the establishment of a school and company - and the fact that she was not asking for any money.

She offered work with her actors and singers at the Vic - "£l a week, dear, for the teaching, £2 for arranging a short dance per show" - and a carrot. She was planning to rebuild the derelict Sadler's Wells Theatre, which would offer space for an embryonic ballet company. De Valois accepted her terms and never wavered in her gratitude for the faith Baylis had in her and for the support she gave. In the years of waiting for the reopening of Sadler's Wells, De Valois busied herself not only with her school but in working with Yeats at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and with Terence Gray at the Festival Theatre, Cambridge. She was also creating her first choreographies, so that when the time came to close her school and move it into Sadler's Wells she had a nucleus of small ballets on which to build. With but one or two performances a week, and very few dancers, she had little else on which to build. But she had the immense good fortune of securing, right from the start, the services of Constant Lambert as musical director and, as invaluable guests, Markova and Dolin.

It was Dolin's performance as Satan in Job and Markova's Giselle that really launched the company. In 1935, when Markova left, De Valois dared, very riskily as it seemed, to make a ballerina of the adolescent Margot Fonteyn. She introduced the great classics, one by one, into the repertory and, there being no more adequate choreographer immediately in sight, she set about supplementing the classics with a British repertory. Of her own choreography she was the toughest of critics, yet she was responsible for making much of that early repertory very British in character. She drew on artists such as Blake, Hogarth and Rowlandson for inspiration and decor, and British compositions old and new, guided by Lambert, for music. Once Frederick Ashton joined her in 1935 as chief choreographer, she was content to delegate much of the choreographic task to him, and in all the postwar years made only one ballet for her company, the unmemorable Don Quixote - to the Roberto Gerhard score.

Yet three of her principal prewar works have lived on: Job - made for the Camargo Society, that curtain-raiser to the Vic-Wells company - The Rake's Progress and Checkmate. They have lived because they are well-constructed and distinctively British items in an increasingly Catholic repertory. From 1931 until her retirement from the directorship in 1963, Madam's biography is that of her company, although she allowed, in her enchanting autobiography Come Dance With Me (1957), "a glimpse of the private side of someone's public life". It seems in retrospect a story of regally calm progress, but it had its challenges and its crises. Until 1939 there was the formidable rivalry of De Basil's and later Massine's big touring organisations, which had inherited so much of Diaghilev's repertory and talent and came, every summer, to the big theatres of the West End, reducing the enterprise at Sadler's Wells to pygmy size. Yet, even before the war scattered them, these Ballet Russe companies were disintegrating. They had no homes; no Diaghilevs to bind them.

During the war the Sadler's Wells company became homeless - and was nearly stranded in Holland by the German invasion. Temporary residence was found at the New (now Albery) Theatre; nationwide touring became necessary; the loss of male dancers to the armed forces was, somehow, surmounted. The momentous step of accepting the invitation to reopen the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, implying recognition of national status, followed in 1946. Perhaps the company was not quite ready. But largely through the new, sumptuous staging of The Sleeping Beauty (supervised by De Valois), it quickly acquired the strength to fit a bigger role. Then came the first visit to the United States in 1949; again a risk, again a triumph. By 1956, the infant Vic-Wells Ballet had gained its Royal Charter - through a brilliantly argued submission written by De Valois - which safely united both companies and their schools under their Royal name. The Royal Ballet had become a setter of international standards, a provider of dancers, choreographers and ballet masters for all save the eastern bloc. And even in that world it proved its quality on its first visit to Moscow and Leningrad in 1961.

Meanwhile, the school had expanded into a full-time educational establishment, and when Madam retired from the company in 1963, it was to the school that she devoted her scarcely abated energy. In addition to her work building a national ballet, Dame Ninette lived a happy parallel life as the wife of Dr AB Connell, whom she married in 1935 (he died in 1987). It was an exemplary union of volatility and calm. While Dr Connell practised at Sunningdale, she was known locally simply as "the doctor's wife", for she was as efficient and charming in running a household (she was an excellent cook) and in dealing with telephone messages for the doctor as she was in running her company. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1957 and a Companion of Honour in 1982, and was awarded the ultimate honour, the Order of Merit, in 1992, receiving in the same year the special award of the Society of West End Theatres for her lifetime's achievement. In addition, there were innumerable honorary degrees and decorations, accepted not so much for herself as in recognition of "the company".

Lilian Baylis was not alone in "liking her face". When young she was very pretty and a piquant, accomplished dancer. Her eyes were large and her facial bone structure was fine; she had the sort of young good looks that age enhanced. Her manner was unobtrusive to the point of shyness and her conversation was a voluble flurry. She had many advisers, to none of whom she seemed to listen; her views were always strong, sometimes ruthless and, from day to day, self-contradictory. She had a persuasive charm that was almost irresistible and very seldom resisted. It was totally unforced, full of fun and humour. Her great strength lay in her integrity, her complete lack of interest in getting rich - she never did - or in acquiring glory for herself. In her final years, past achievements mattered less and less to her; she looked urgently, impatiently, to the future, concerned only with what "her" ballet was going to become. Her colleagues, her dancers - her children, as they could not help regarding themselves - loved her, especially towards the end when she needed them most.

They knew that without her they, the two companies, the school, the whole of British ballet with its reputation built over half a century, would not be here. On her 100th birthday at White Lodge she was surrounded by the children she loved, especially the small boys. It was a beautiful day and she turned to one of her former colleagues, looked up at the sky and said: "I don't see how anything up there can be as beautiful as this." Ninette de Valois (Edris Stannus), ballerina, choreographer, ballet company director and teacher, born June 6 1898; died March 8 2001 The late James Monahan (the Guardian's former ballet critic, James Kennedy) took charge of the Royal Ballet School at the end of a long career in journalism and at the BBC World Service. He died in 1985. Ninette de Valois Facts for Kids | KidzSearch.com Dame Ninette de Valois OM CH DBE FRAD FISTD (6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish -born British dancer , teacher, choreographer and director of classical ballet .

Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes , reaching the rank of soloist. After Diaghilev's death she established what became The Royal Ballet . This became one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies in the world today. She also established the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet School . She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the 'godmother' of English ballet. [1] [2] [3] Career Before de Valois there had been no permanent ballet company in London, though there were a few quality dance schools which offered shows from time to time. The company which became the Royal Ballet started as the Vic-Wells Ballet, founded by de Valois in 1931. It had Anton Dolin as its Guest dancer. In 1933 the company was joined by Alicia Markova , who was appointed prima ballerina. At this point de Valois retired as a stage performer, and continued as Director. Her reputation was now made as an organiser and teacher. She was also a choreographer, with a number of ballets to her credit.

Her ballet Checkmate is still danced today. 'Madame', as she was called by everyone, attracted great talents to the company. She engaged Frederick Ashton as Principal Choreographer and Constant Lambert as Musical Director, in 1935. [3] Tamara Karsavina was a dance advisor. Eventually the company included many of the most famous ballet dancers in the world, including Margot Fonteyn , Svetlana Beriosova , and, most sensationally, Rudolf Nureyev . As a manager, she had a fearsome reputation. She would stand for no misbehaviour, or for anything which stood in the way of the dance. One younger dancer said: "She could be absolutely terrifying and I count it as one of the blessings of my life that I never saw that side of her... The dragon manner was business. Outside of that she was the most witty, delightful, intelligent and informed of companions". [4] The Vic-Wells was given a Royal Charter in 1956, and became the Royal Ballet. Madame was its first Director. She retired from the Royal Ballet in 1963, but was a big influence for years.

She was appointed a Companion of Honour , and awarded the Order of Merit . Madame died at the age of 102 in 2001. References Star who gave birth to the Royal Ballet - Telegraph Star who gave birth to the Royal Ballet By Ismene Brown, dance critic 12:00AM GMT 09 Mar 2001 A GRAPHOLOGIST asked to identify an anonymous sample of handwriting by Ninette de Valois gave this verdict: "She is an idealist with absolutely no illusions." De Valois was not simply the woman who created British ballet but one of the great figures in all British theatre. Having begun as an Irish-born child entertainer in Lila Field's Wonder Children, she became a ballerina with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and it was Diaghilev who inflamed her with the crusade to give Britain ballet. At 28 she instinctively realised that to have a company you must first grow the dancers, and so she founded a dance school in 1926.

When she died, 74 years later, not only Britain had a world-renowned ballet company but so did Canada, Australia, South Africa and Turkey, thanks to her disciples going forth. The fact that in America people still think that Britain has a ballet tradition at least as old as Russia's or France's is a measure of the grand illusion that she successfully pulled over others' eyes. Younger generations of ballet-goers who did not know her reign at the Royal Ballet heard frequently of her ruthlessness, even brutality. Pictures of her showed a handsome, intellectual face with haunting, direct eyes. Film of her at work showed an elderly woman waving a stick at dancers and shouting at them. Related Articles Dame Ninette, doyenne of dance, dies at 102 09 Mar 2001 As her longtime friend, Sir Peter Wright, former director of Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet, pointed out yesterday, de Valois - easily hurt - was a mass of apparent contradictions. He said: "I will always think of her beautiful grey eyes, which could be so full of warmth and compassion and then change so suddenly into a penetrating fury, if she was faced with incompetence.

She was always brutally honest, which could be quite upsetting. But as a friend I found I valued her directness." De Valois was married for 52 years to a GP, Dr Arthur Connell, who once attended Marilyn Monroe when she had a miscarriage shortly after her marriage to Arthur Miller. Wright says that despite de Valois's overwhelming commitment to the ballet companies and school, she was "an excellent housewife and good cook, and absolutely devoted to her husband. She had had so many illnesses and injuries that she once said to me, 'I've had everything except a baby'. But in truth I think she was too consumed by her work really for children." For Sir Anthony Dowell, director of the Royal Ballet, who learned to dance under her reign, de Valois's death felt like losing a mother figure. "My early feelings were always of being scared by her," he said yesterday, shocked and emotional. "The company was her family, and the Royal Ballet is a kind of dynasty unlike any other company anywhere, with its own bloodline from her." For ballet-goers, de Valois's colossal shadow was a source of constant reference.

Under her came the rise of everything that makes British ballet great - its finest choreographers, Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan, its greatest dancers, Margot Fonteyn, Lynn Seymour, Dowell and his partner Antoinette Sibley. De Valois's hiring of Rudolf Nureyev when he defected from the USSR was highly controversial - but it began a golden new era at the Royal Ballet just when it needed one. Although de Valois was one of the great empire-builders of British history, she was less concerned with pomp and circumstance than with structure and stability. As a dancer with experience of touring in reach-me-down companies in a world without subsidies, she was more conscious than most of the fragility of the life. The establishments - the grants system, the concept of national companies, the Royal Opera House, the Royal Ballet School, the redevelopments of Sadler's Wells Theatre and the Birmingham Hippodrome, base of the Birmingham Royal Ballet - were insurance policies, not intended to obstruct artistic energy.

Though she died many years after she would have wished to, Sir Peter is grateful that she had seen these complicated developments come to fruition, with all the vote of confidence that implied from the British people, recognising de Valois's legacy as truly national assets. Royal Opera House Collections Online Royal Opera House Collections Online All items in the Ninette de Valois Bequest, with images Ninette de Valois Bequest and Papers A key figure in 20th-century British ballet, Ninette de Valois (1898-2001) was the Founder of The Royal Ballet, The Birmingham Royal Ballet and The Royal Ballet School. She was born Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898 in County Wicklow, Ireland, and moved to England in 1905. At the age of 13 she started her professional dance training at the Lila Field Academy for Children. In 1914 she made her professional debut as a principal dancer in pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre, under the name Ninette de Valois. By 1919 she was principal dancer with the Beecham Opera at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

During this period, de Valois studied with renowned ballet teachers Edouard Espinosa, Enrico Cecchetti and Nicholas Legat. In 1923 she joined Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, creating roles in Les Biches and Le Train bleu and rising to the rank of soloist in 1925. In 1926 de Valois left to found her own school, the Academy of Choregraphic Art, knowing that, to achieve her ambition of creating a British ballet company, she must have a school from which to draw dancers and establish a national style. To give her pupils professional experience she offered them to Lilian Baylis, Director of the Old Vic Theatre, to appear in opera and Shakespeare plays, with de Valois as choreographer. Over the next four years she produced several small ballets for the Old Vic. In 1931, when Lilian Baylis reopened Sadler’s Wells Theatre, de Valois moved her school into that theatre and founded a ballet company of six women, with herself as leading dancer and choreographer.

The Vic-Wells Ballet gave its first full evening of ballet on 5 May 1931 at the Old Vic, with Anton Dolin as guest star. The company’s first performance at Sadler’s Wells Theatre was ten days later. With the engagement of Alicia Markova as ballerina, de Valois was able to mount the great Russian classical ballets, thus setting a high classical standard for audiences and dancers. She also set about establishing a British repertory, engaging Frederick Ashton as Principal Choreographer in 1935. De Valois continued to create ballets herself and, during the 1930s, choreographed her three masterpieces: Job (1931), The Rake’s Progress (1935) and Checkmate (1937). In 1935, she married Dr Arthur Connell, a general practitioner. During World War II, the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, as it was then known, toured throughout England, building a national reputation and establishing ballet as a popular art.

In 1946, the Sadler’s Wells Ballet became the resident ballet company at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and de Valois established a second company based at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. (This Company underwent several name changes and is now The Birmingham Royal Ballet.) In 1947 de Valois was made CBE and in 1951 was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1963 de Valois retired, handing over the directorship of The Royal Ballet, as the Company had become in 1956, to Frederick Ashton. She subsequently devoted herself to teaching at The Royal Ballet School (until 1971), to directing the Turkish State Ballet (which she had helped found in 1947), and to reviving her own ballets. In 1983 de Valois was made a Companion of the Order of the Companions of Honour, and in 1992 she received the Order of Merit. She was also the recipient of numerous honorary doctorate degrees and dance industry awards.

De Valois published four books: Invitation to the Ballet (1937), Come Dance with Me (1957), Step by Step (1977) and The Cycle and Other Poems (1985). She died in London on 3 March 2001, aged 102. Royal Opera House Collections holds two special collections related to Ninette de Valois: her bequest of awards, medals, and honours, and a small collection of correspondence, dating 1977-2000, donated by her family. Acknowledgements: Peter Duckers of the Shropshire Regimental Museum for assistance in cataloguing the medals; Can Yuksel, Zeki Melek, and Mike Jones for the Turkish translations. Data and website © Royal Opera House Collections. Images © ROH Collections unless otherwise stated | ROH website Dame Ninette de Valois | Article about Dame Ninette de Valois by The Free Dictionary Dame Ninette de Valois | Article about Dame Ninette de Valois by The Free Dictionary (redirected from Dame Ninette de Valois) Also found in: Wikipedia .

Ballet Dancer Ballet Teacher Choreographer Company Director Education Lila Field Academy for Children Edouard Espinosa Enrico Cecchetti Nicholas Legat Known for (pseudonym of Edris Stannus). Born June 6, 1898, in Baltiboys, Ireland. British ballerina and choreographer. Ninette de Valois studied with E. Espinosa and E. Cecchetti and made her debut in London in 1914 at the Lyceum Theater. From 1923 to 1926 she danced with Diaghilev’s company. In 1926 she founded the Academy of Choreographic Art in London, where classical dance was emphasized. On the basis of this academy, she organized, with L. Baylis, a ballet school at the Old Vic Theater in London from which the Sadler’s Wells company (renamed the Royal Ballet in 1957) was later formed. She directed the Royal Ballet itself until 1963, whereupon she became director of its school.

Among the ballets she produced were Les Petits Riens based on Mozart’s music (1922), Gordon’s The Rake’s Progress (1935) based on W. Hogarth’s series of paintings, Bliss’ Checkmate (1937), and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (1952). She is the author of books on the ballet. In 1947 she was made an honorary doctor of music by the University of London and in 1950, an honorary doctor of literature by Oxford University. WORKS Ninette de Valois Ninette de Valois Ninette de Valois, Нинетт де Валуа, Идрис Станнус, Dame Ninette de Valois Categories: Set cemetery Person Dame Ninette de Valois, OM, CH, DBE, FRAD, FISTD (6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer and director of classical ballet.

Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, later establishing The Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies in the world today. She also established the Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the 'godmother' of English ballet. Biography Ninette de Valois was born Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898, near the town of Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland. She was the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Stannus DSO, a British Army officer, and Lillith Graydon-Smith, a distinguished glassmaker. She moved to England in 1905, where she lived with her grandmother in Kent. De Valois started attending ballet lessons in 1908 at the age of 10. At the age of 13, she began her professional training at the Lila Field Academy for Children.

It was at this time that she legally changed her name to Ninette de Valois and made her professional debut as a principal dancer in pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in the West End. In 1919, at the age of 21, she was appointed principal dancer of the Beecham Opera, which was then the resident opera company at the Royal Opera House. She continued to study ballet with notable teachers, including Edouard Espinosa, Enrico Cecchetti and Nicholas Legat. In 1923, de Valois joined the Ballets Russes, a renowned ballet company founded by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. She remained with the company for three years, being promoted to the rank of Soloist, and creating roles in some of the company's most famous ballets, including Les biches and Le Train Bleu. During this time, she was also mentor to Alicia Markova who was only a child at the time, but would eventually be recognised as a Prima Ballerina Assoluta and one of the most famous English dancers of all time.

Later in her life, de Valois claimed that everything she knew about how to run a ballet company, she learned from working with Diaghilev. After leaving the Ballets Russes, in 1927, de Valois established the Academy of Choreographic Art, a dance school for girls. Her ultimate goal was to form a repertory ballet company, with dancers drawn from the school and trained in a uniquely British style of ballet. Students of the school were given professional stage experience performing in opera and plays staged at the Old Vic Theatre, with de Valois choreographing several short ballets for the theatre. Lilian Baylis was the owner of the Old Vic at that time, and in 1928 she also acquired and refurbished the Sadler's Wells Theatre, with the intention of creating a sister theatre to the Old Vic. She employed de Valois to stage full scale dance productions at both theatres and when the Sadler's Wells theatre re-opened in 1931, de Valois moved her school into studios there, under the new name, the Sadler's Wells Ballet School. A ballet company was also formed, known as the Vic-Wells Ballet.

The Vic-Wells ballet company and school would be the predecessors of today's Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School. Vic-Wells Ballet At its formation, the Vic-Wells ballet had only six female dancers, with de Valois herself working as lead dancer and choreographer. The company performed its first full ballet production on 5 May 1931 at the Old Vic, with Anton Dolin as guest star. Its first performance at Sadler's Wells, was on 15 May 1931. As a result of the success of the ballet company, de Valois hired new dancers and choreographers to work with the company. She retired from the stage herself after Alicia Markova joined the company and was appointed Prima Ballerina in 1933. Under de Valois' direction, the ballet company flourished in the 1930s, becoming one of the first Western dance companies to perform the classical ballet repertoire made famous by the Imperial Russian Ballet. She also set about establishing a British repertory, engaging Frederick Ashton as Principal Choreographer and Constant Lambert as Musical Director in 1935.

She also choreographed a number of her own ballets, including her most notable works, Job (1931), The Rake's Progress (1935) and Checkmate (1937). Eventually the company included many of the most famous ballet dancers in the world, including Margot Fonteyn, Robert Helpmann, Moira Shearer, Beryl Grey, and Michael Somes. In 1949 the Sadler Wells Ballet was a sensation when they toured the United States. Margot Fonteyn instantly became an international celebrity. In 1947, de Valois established the first ballet school in Turkey. Formed as the ballet school of the Turkish State Opera and Ballet in Istanbul, the school was later absorbed into and became the School of Music & Ballet at Ankara State Conservatory, a department of the Hacettepe University. De Valois was not one to rest on laurels, though. She made sure that her company had a constant supply of talent, and in later years the company had such stars as Svetlana Beriosova, Antoinette Sibley, Nadia Nerina, Lynn Seymour, and, most sensationally, Rudolf Nureyev.

de Valois also invited choreographers like Sir Kenneth MacMillan and George Balanchine to work with her company. She formally retired from the Royal Ballet in 1963, but her presence continued to loom large in the company. She was known as very stern and formidable, and perhaps for that reason someone gave her the nickname 'Madam.' The nickname stuck, and from then on even in formal articles and interviews she was called 'Madam.' She would good-naturedly sign 'Madam' in correspondence. The Royal Ballet continues to be recognised as Britain's leading classical ballet company and one of the foremost companies of the 20th century and is based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London. In 1935, she married Arthur Connell, an Irish surgeon who died in 1986. They did not have children. Ninette de Valois was the cousin of author Wei Wu Wei. She continued to make public appearances until her death at age 102 in London. Turkish State Ballet As with ballet in the United Kingdom, de Valois exerted a great deal of influence on the development of ballet in Turkey, which had no prior history with the art form.

The Turkish Government invited de Valois to research the possibility of establishing a ballet school in the country and she subsequently visited the country in the 1940s, opening a school following the same model as her Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London. Initially, very few people took the project seriously, but the school did become firmly established and led to the development of the Turkish State Ballet. After training the first set of pupils at the new Turkish Ballet School, de Valois subsequently produced a number of early performances by the state ballet company, permitting guest appearances by Royal Ballet dancers including Margot Fonteyn, Nadia Nerina, Anya Linden, Michael Somes and David Blair. She mounted productions of the traditional classical repertoire including Coppélia, Giselle, Don Quixote, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, as well as the contemporary ballets Les Patineurs, Les Rendezvous and Prince of the Pagodas by Frederick Ashton, and her own ballets The Rake's Progress, Checkmate and Orpheus. In 1965, de Valois produced and choreographed the first full length ballet created for the new Turkish State Ballet.

Titled Çeşmebaşı (At the Fountain), the ballet was the first to feature music composed by a Turkish Composer Ferit Tuzun and with choreography incorporating elements of Turkish folk dance. Further ballets followed and the ballet company continued to develop. Today, ballet continues to be a thriving art form in Turkey, with the ballet school that de Valois established now forming part of the State Conservatory for Music and Drama at the Ankara State Conservatory. Choreography Ninette de Valois first established herself as a choreographer producing several short ballets for the Old Vic Theatre, London. She also provided choreography for plays and operas at the theatre, all of which were performed by her own pupils. After forming the Vic-Wells ballet, her first major production, Job (1931), was the first ballet to define the future of the British ballet repertoire. Later employing Frederick Ashton as the company's first Principal Choreographer in 1935, they collaborated to produce a series of signature ballets, which are recognised as cornerstones of British ballet. These included her other famous works, The Rake’s Progress (1935) and Checkmate (1937).

Job (1931) The oldest ballet in the Royal Ballet repertoire, Job is regarded as a crucial work in the development of British ballet and was the first ballet to be produced by an entirely British creative team. The ballet was produced and choreographed by de Valois, with a commissioned score titled Job, a Masque for Dancing, written by Ralph Vaughan Williams, orchestrations by Constant Lambert and designs by Gwendolen Raverat. The libretto for the ballet was written by Geoffrey Keynes and is based on William Blake's engraved edition of the Book of Job from the Hebrew Bible. Consisting of eight scenes, the ballet is inspired by Blake's engravings and so de Valois choreographed the ballet using predominantly mimed actions to create a simple decorative effect. Despite the choreography of the ballet being described as 'uneven', Job features a number of well known dances, which continue to be performed regularly. The most recognised extracts are Satan's Dance, an acrobatic solo for a male dancer, the dance of Job's comforters, and the satirical expressionist dances representing War, Pestilence and Famine.

Job had its world premiere on 5 July 1931, and was performed for members of the Camargo Society at the Cambridge Theatre, London. The first public performance of the ballet took place on 22 September 1931 at the Old Vic Theatre.

Other works Ninette de Valois' other works include: Bar aux Folies-Bergère (1934), for The Ballet Club The Rake's Progress (1935) As You Like It (1936) Checkmate (1937) The Prospect Before Us (1940) Keloğlan (1950) At the Fountain Head (1963) Çeşmebaşı (1965), for the Turkish State Opera and Ballet Sinfonietta (1966) Ninette de Valois : definition of Ninette de Valois and synonyms of Ninette de Valois (English) Laurence Olivier Award, 1992 Dame Ninette de Valois, OM , CH , DBE , FRAD , FISTD (6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer and director of classical ballet . Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes , later establishing The Royal Ballet , one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies in the world today.

She also established the Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School . She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the 'godmother' of English ballet. [1] [2] [3] Contents 9 External links Biography Ninette de Valois was born Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898, near the town of Blessington , County Wicklow , Ireland . She was the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Stannus ( DSO ), a British army officer, and Lillith Graydon-Smith, a distinguished glassmaker. [4] [5] She moved to England in 1905, where she lived with her grandmother in Kent. [6] De Valois started attending ballet lessons in 1908 at the age of 10. At the age of 13, she began her professional training at the Lila Field Academy for Children. [6] It was at this time that she legally changed her name to Ninette de Valois and made her professional debut as a principal dancer in pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in the West End .

[6] In 1919, at the age of 21, she was appointed principal dancer of the Beecham Opera, which was then the resident opera company at the Royal Opera House . [6] She continued to study ballet with notable teachers, including Edouard Espinosa , Enrico Cecchetti and Nicholas Legat . [6] In 1923, de Valois joined the Ballets Russes , a renowned ballet company founded by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev . [6] She remained with the company for three years, being promoted to the rank of Soloist, and creating roles in some of the company's most famous ballets, including Les biches and Le Train Bleu . [6] During this time, she was also mentor to Alicia Markova who was only a child at the time, but would eventually be recognised as a Prima Ballerina Assoluta and one of the most famous English dancers of all time. Later in her life, de Valois claimed that everything she knew about how to run a ballet company, she learned from working with Diaghilev.

[3] After leaving the Ballets Russes, in 1927, de Valois established the Academy of Choreographic Art, a dance school for girls. [3] Her ultimate goal was to form a repertory ballet company, with dancers drawn from the school and trained in a uniquely British style of ballet. [6] Students of the school were given professional stage experience performing in opera and plays staged at the Old Vic Theatre , with de Valois choreographing several short ballets for the theatre. Lilian Baylis was the owner of the Old Vic at that time, and in 1928 she also acquired and refurbished the Sadler's Wells Theatre , with the intention of creating a sister theatre to the Old Vic. She employed de Valois to stage full scale dance productions at both theatres and when the Sadler's Wells theatre re-opened in 1931, de Valois moved her school into studios there, under the new name, the Sadler's Wells Ballet School . A ballet company was also formed, known as the Vic-Wells Ballet . The Vic-Wells ballet company and school would be the predecessors of today's Royal Ballet , Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School .

Vic-Wells Ballet At its formation, the Vic-Wells ballet had only six female dancers, with de Valois herself working as lead dancer and choreographer. The company performed its first full ballet production on 5 May 1931 at the Old Vic, with Anton Dolin as guest star. Its first performance at Sadler's Wells, was on 15 May 1931. As a result of the success of the ballet company, de Valois hired new dancers and choreographers to work with the company. She retired from the stage herself after Alicia Markova joined the company and was appointed Prima Ballerina in 1933. Under de Valois' direction, the ballet company flourished in the 1930s, becoming one of the first Western dance companies to perform the classical ballet repertoire made famous by the Imperial Russian Ballet . She also set about establishing a British repertory, engaging Frederick Ashton as Principal Choreographer and Constant Lambert as Musical Director in 1935.

[3] She also choreographed a number of her own ballets, including her most notable works, Job (1931), The Rake's Progress (1935) and Checkmate (1937). Eventually the company included many of the most famous ballet dancers in the world, including Margot Fonteyn , Robert Helpmann , Moira Shearer , Beryl Grey , and Michael Somes . In 1949 the Sadler Wells Ballet was a sensation when they toured the United States. Margot Fonteyn instantly became an international celebrity. In 1947, de Valois established the first ballet school in Turkey. Formed as the ballet school of the Turkish State Opera and Ballet in Istanbul , the school was later absorbed into and became the School of Music & Ballet at Ankara State Conservatory , a department of the Hacettepe University . [7] [8] De Valois was not one to rest on laurels, though.

She made sure that her company had a constant supply of talent, and in later years the company had such stars as Svetlana Beriosova , Antoinette Sibley , Nadia Nerina , Lynn Seymour , and, most sensationally, Rudolf Nureyev . de Valois also invited choreographers like Sir Kenneth MacMillan and George Balanchine to work with her company. She formally retired from the Royal Ballet in 1963, but her presence continued to loom large in the company. She was known as very stern and formidable, and perhaps for that reason someone gave her the nickname 'Madam.' The nickname stuck, and from then on even in formal articles and interviews she was called 'Madam.' She would good-naturedly sign 'Madam' in correspondence. The Royal Ballet continues to be recognised as Britain's leading classical ballet company and one of the foremost companies of the 20th century and is based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden , London. In 1935, she married Arthur Connell, an Irish surgeon who died in 1986. They did not have children.

[9] Ninette de Valois was the cousin of author Wei Wu Wei . She continued to make public appearances until her death at age 102 in London . Turkish State Ballet As with ballet in the United Kingdom, de Valois exerted a great deal of influence on the development of ballet in Turkey , which had no prior history with the art form. The Turkish Government invited de Valois to research the possibility of establishing a ballet school in the country and she subsequently visited the country in the 1940s, opening a school following the same model as her Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London. Initially, very few people took the project seriously, but the school did become firmly established and led to the development of the Turkish State Ballet . [10] After training the first set of pupils at the new Turkish Ballet School, de Valois subsequently produced a number of early performances by the state ballet company, permitting guest appearances by Royal Ballet dancers including Margot Fonteyn , Nadia Nerina , Anya Linden , Michael Somes and David Blair .

She mounted productions of the traditional classical repertoire including Coppélia , Giselle , Don Quixote , Swan Lake and The Nutcracker , as well as the contemporary ballets Les Patineurs , Les Rendezvous and Prince of the Pagodas by Frederick Ashton, and her own ballets The Rake's Progress, Checkmate and Orpheus. [10] In 1965, de Valois produced and choreographed the first full length ballet created for the new Turkish State Ballet. Titled Çeşmebaşı (At the Fountain), the ballet was the first to feature music composed by a Turkish Composer Ferit Tuzun and with choreography incorporating elements of Turkish folk dance. Further ballets followed and the ballet company continued to develop. Today, ballet continues to be a thriving art form in Turkey, with the ballet school that de Valois established now forming part of the State Conservatory for Music and Drama at the Ankara State Conservatory. [10] Choreography Ninette de Valois first established herself as a choreographer producing several short ballets for the Old Vic Theatre , London. She also provided choreography for plays and operas at the theatre, all of which were performed by her own pupils.

[6] After forming the Vic-Wells ballet, her first major production, Job (1931), was the first ballet to define the future of the British ballet repertoire. Later employing Frederick Ashton as the company's first Principal Choreographer in 1935., [6] they collaborated to produce a series of signature ballets, which are recognised as cornerstones of British ballet. These included her other famous works, The Rake’s Progress (1935) and Checkmate (1937). [6] Job (1931) Main article: Job (ballet) The oldest ballet in the Royal Ballet repertoire, Job is regarded as a crucial work in the development of British ballet and was the first ballet to be produced by an entirely British creative team. [11] The ballet was produced and choreographed by de Valois, with a commissioned score titled Job, a Masque for Dancing, written by Ralph Vaughan Williams , orchestrations by Constant Lambert and designs by Gwendolen Raverat . The libretto for the ballet was written by Geoffrey Keynes and is based on William Blake 's engraved edition of the Book of Job from the Hebrew Bible .

[12] Consisting of eight scenes, the ballet is inspired by Blake's engravings and so de Valois choreographed the ballet using predominantly mimed actions to create a simple decorative effect. [13] Despite the choreography of the ballet being described as 'uneven', Job features a number of well known dances, which continue to be performed regularly. The most recognised extracts are Satan's Dance, an acrobatic solo for a male dancer, the dance of Job's comforters, and the satirical expressionist dances representing War, Pestilence and Famine. [14] Job had its world premiere on 5 July 1931, and was performed for members of the Camargo Society at the Cambridge Theatre , London. The first public performance of the ballet took place on 22 September 1931 at the Old Vic Theatre. [12] Other works Honours and awards Honours Ninette de Valois was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 1 January 1947 [15] and became Dame Commander (DBE) on 1 January 1951.

[16] She was appointed Companion of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) on 31 December 1981 [17] and was admitted into the Order of Merit on 2 January 1992. [18] She was appointed Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur on 1 May 1950 [19] and received the Turkish Republic Honour of Merit (Liyakat Nişani) on 2 January 1998. [20] Awards She received the Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts in 1989 [29] and the Society of London Theatre Laurence Olivier Award Special Award in 1992. [30] In the United States, she received the Dance Theatre of Harlem Emergence Award on 27 July 1981. [31] Honoris causa degrees She received DLitt. from the University of Reading in 1951, the University of Oxford in 1955 and the University of Ulster in 1979.

In 1958 she received an LLD from the University of Aberdeen and on 5 July 1975 Doctor of Letters from the University of Sussex . [33] Bibliography De Valois, Ninette (1937). Invitation to the Ballet. London: Bodley Head. OCLC 59460167 . De Valois, Ninette (1957). Come Dance with Me; A Memoir, 1898-1956. London: H. Hamilton. OCLC 4063947 . De Valois, Ninette (1977). Step by Step: The Formation of an Establishment. London: W. H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-01598-4 . See also List of people on stamps of Ireland References

Question: Which Irish-born ballerina, who died aged 102 in 2001, founded the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet?
Answer: Ninette de Valois